The weekend of February 9 and 10 featured five art festivals from Naples to Matlacha. Festival season continues the weekend of February 16 and 17 in Lely and Sanibel Island.
The 3rd Annual Ole’ Art & Jazz Festival is a free art, wine and jazz festival held at The Ole’ Village at Lely Resorts in Naples. This friendly community boasts charming Mediterranean architecture, lots of lush landscaping and inviting pedestrian thoroughfares situated around a thriving Village Center. The artists line the walkways around Spine Fountain while the renowned Alan Darcy Jazz Band performs in the Olé Amphitheater.
This is a cozy boutique show with spaces available for just 40 national artists skilled in photography, jewelry, glass blowing and painting. Organizer Boulderbrook Productions has limited the number of artists for a variety of reasons. The small number of artists avoids duplication and repetition. It also ensures that festival patrons are exposed to only the highest quality art.
Boulderbrook Productions festival director Richard Sullivan also limits the size and chooses intimate settings for his festivals in order to give participating artists and festival goers a reasonable opportunity to converse about the art on display in the show. You’ll find all of this and more at the Ole’ Art & Jazz Festival.
The weekend of February 16 & 17 is also time for the 30th Annual Sanibel Island Arts and Crafts Fair. The festival is held on the lawn of The Sanibel Community House located at 2173 Periwinkle Drive, Sanibel’s main street. The Sanibel Community House has been an island fixture since 1927 and touts itself as The Gathering Placeon Sanibel Island.
Many festival goers are already on the island, enjoying a break from the snow and ice covering the northern states this time of year. Others visit the island specifically to take in one or both days of the fair. Either way, this Rotary-sponsored classic arts and crafts fair attracts over 10,000 visitors and more than 100 artists and artisans from around the country who collectively bring paintings in oil and acrylic, watercolors, drawings and graphic art, photography and digital art, sculpture, ceramics, pottery wood working, hand-painted furniture, hand-crafted jewelry, unique gifts, wearable art, and much more.
Besides the art, this fair is known for tasty food and community displays designed to introduce visitors to the islands of Sanibel and Captiva.
Whether it's Lely or Sanibel, art lovers will find variety, quality and original works of fine art.
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